'\"macro stdmacro
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.TH NEWHELP 1 "PCP" "Performance Co-Pilot"
.SH NAME
\f3newhelp\f1 \- generate a performance metrics help database
.SH SYNOPSIS
\f3$PCP_BINADM_DIR/newhelp\f1
[\f3\-vV?\f1]
[\f3\-D\f1 \f2debug\f1]
[\f3\-n\f1 \f2pmnsfile\f1]
[\f3\-o\f1 \f2outputfile\f1]
[\f2file\f1 ...]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B newhelp
generates the
Performance Co-Pilot
help text files used by
Performance Metric Domain Agents (PMDAs).
.PP
Normally
.B newhelp
operates on the default Performance Metrics Name Space (PMNS), however
if the
.B \-n
option is specified an alternative namespace is loaded
from the file
.IR pmnsfile .
.PP
When there is only one input file,
the base name of the new database is derived from the name of the input
.IR file ,
otherwise the
.B \-o
flag must be given to explicitly name the database.
If no input files are supplied,
.B newhelp
reads from the standard input stream,
in which case the
.B \-o
flag must be given.
.PP
If the output file name is determined to be
.BR foo ,
.B newhelp
will create
.B foo.dir
and
.BR foo.pag .
.PP
The
.B \-V
flag causes verbose messages to be printed while
.B newhelp
is parsing its input.
.PP
The first line of each entry in a help source file consists of an
\&``@''
character beginning the line
followed by a space and then
the performance metric name and a one line description of the metric.
Following lines (up to the next line beginning with ``@''
or end of file) may contain a verbose help description.
E.g.
.PP
.ft CR
.nf
.in +0.5i
#
# This is an example of newhelp's input syntax
#
@ kernel.all.cpu.idle CPU idle time
A cumulative count of the number of milliseconds
of CPU idle time, summed over all processors.
.in
.fi
.ft 1
.PP
Three-part numeric metric identifiers (PMIDs) may be used in place of metric names,
e.g. \c
.ft CR
60.0.23
.ft 1
rather than
.ft CR
kernel.all.cpu.idle
.ft 1
in the example above.
Other than for dynamic metrics
(where the existence of a metric is known to
a PMDA, but not visible in the PMNS and hence has no name that
could be known to
.IR newhelp )
use of this syntactic variant is not encouraged.
.PP
Lines beginning with ``#''
are ignored, as are blank lines in the file before the first ``@''.
The verbose help text is optional.
.PP
As a special case,
a ``metric'' name of the form
.I NNN.MM
(for numeric
.I NNN
and
.IR MM )
is interpreted as an
instance domain identification,
and the text describes the instance domain.
.SH OPTIONS
The available command line options are:
.TP 5
\fB\-o\fR \fIoutput\fR, \fB\-\-output\fR=\fIoutout\fR
Specify base name for
.I output
files.
.TP
\fB\-n\fR \fIpmnsfile\fR, \fB\-\-namespace\fR=\fIpmnsfile\fR
Load an alternative Performance Metrics Name Space
.RB ( PMNS (5))
from the file
.IR pmnsfile .
.TP
\fB\-v\fR \fIversion\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR=\fIversion\fR
Set output version.
This options is deprecated, the only supported value is
.BR 2 .
.TP
\fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-verbose\fR
Print verbose output.
.TP
\fB\-?\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
Display usage message and exit.
.SH FILES
.TP 5
.I $PCP_VAR_DIR/pmns/*
default PMNS specification files
.SH PCP ENVIRONMENT
Environment variables with the prefix \fBPCP_\fP are used to parameterize
the file and directory names used by PCP.
On each installation, the
file \fI/etc/pcp.conf\fP contains the local values for these variables.
The \fB$PCP_CONF\fP variable may be used to specify an alternative
configuration file, as described in \fBpcp.conf\fP(5).
.PP
For environment variables affecting PCP tools, see \fBpmGetOptions\fP(3).
.SH DEBUGGING OPTIONS
The
.B \-D
or
.B \-\-debug
option enables the output of additional diagnostics on
.I stderr
to help triage problems, although the information is sometimes cryptic and
primarily intended to provide guidance for developers rather end-users.
.I debug
is a comma separated list of debugging options; use
.BR pmdbg (1)
with the
.B \-l
option to obtain
a list of the available debugging options and their meaning.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR chkhelp (1),
.BR PMAPI (3),
.BR pmLookupInDomText (3),
.BR pmLookupText (3),
.BR pcp.conf (5),
.BR pcp.env (5)
and
.BR PMNS (5).

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